Return to the Field
by Vibrant Filly
Summary: I dunno about you, but I've always wondered what happened to Detective Curtis after the character left the show. This is my idea. Slightly grisly reading (all the better!)


"Return to the Field" (working title)  
  
1 By Vibrant Filly  
  
Chapter One: Patterns  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own Detective Ray Curtis. (I know some people spell it 'Rey' but I haven't seen it spelled on the show as such, and so don't bug me about the spelling of his name. Besides, that spelling drives my computer nuts). I don't own anything about him. Dick Wolf and the likes, those that created and brought to life his character own him, and I am using him without permission. This story is meant just for the free amusement of other "Law & Order" fans, like myself, and will bring in no profit whatsoever. No copyright infringement is intended. However, I do own Trinity Colz and the other characters I made up, as well as the plot lines and modus operandi. Please don't steal my hard work.  
  
Author's Notes: I've been kinda absent from FanFiction.Net for the past while. Heh, too much schoolwork, play rehearsals, and such. I've been working on stories on paper for the past while instead. If you don't know who I am, considering this is my first "Law & Order" fanfic, you probably don't care. (Come to think of it, I don't think anyone cares…oh well). Anyway, a little background before the fic…it's set in this current year, in September, so it's a teensy bit of time travel. I've always wondered what happened to Ray Curtis after his character left the show, so I came up with this. Enjoy.  
  
~*~*~  
  
58th Precinct  
  
New York City, New York  
  
September 14, 2002  
  
7:59 AM  
  
---  
  
Detective Sergeant Trinity Colz walked to her desk, slipping off her gray overcoat and folding it over the back of her desk chair. If she'd had it her way, she wouldn't have left the precinct overnight. Her dog, Rai, was well taken care of by Mrs. Mendez, her neighbor, whenever she was working a case.  
  
"Good morning," greeted her partner, Alex Jepp.  
  
Trinity smiled. "Morning." She picked up a folder from her desk, flipping it open to reveal the autopsy report of the latest victim. Slightly belated, but the ME's office has been particularly busy this past week. If it was one thing she hated, it was rushed results from anything.  
  
"Did you get any sleep last night?" Jepp asked, his attention focused on a folder of paperwork. They way he asked the question was off-hand, as if he were asking her how she was feeling this dreary morning.  
  
Trinity scanned the preliminary report attached to the top of the file. "Same old, same old," she murmured, placing the folder back on her desk. She sat silently, not looking at her partner. Just as he was about to repeat his question, she held up one hand to halt him. "I heard you the first time." She lowered her hand to her desk again. "And no, I didn't."  
  
Jepp's mouth set in a hard line. "Trinity, you need sleep. You haven't slept well in more than three weeks," he told her, sounding like a father quietly scolding a child who had misbehaved in public.  
  
  
  
Her dark gaze darted up, locking with his. Her chocolaty brown eyes flashed with an angry, defiant glitter. "You know damn well I can't sleep during an open case, so don't try to make me." Her gaze never wavered, penetrating into his almost cruelly. She noted how his hazel eyes bore a glint of uncertainty before he looked away. Satisfied he wouldn't push the matter further she sat back in her chair.  
  
"Captain wants to see you," he said, his voice barely audible as a detective leading a noisy working girl passed their desk to an interrogation room, but she had been able to catch his words well enough.  
  
She nodded slowly, and stood, walking off to Captain Andrew Donnogan's office. As she approached the door, she could see through the slat blinds that he was talking with someone in the office. The conversation seemed somewhat casual, but she could only see her superior, the other conversationalist standing with his back to her. Not wanting to interrupt, Trinity turned and headed back to her desk, sliding into her seat. She caught sight of a cardboard box resting on one of the two desks neighboring her's and Jepp's adjoined desks.  
  
Jepp looked up from his paperwork, slightly puzzled. "I thought you were going to see Donnogan…?"  
  
"I was, but he's speaking with someone, and I didn't want to disturb them. If it's incredibly important, he can always find me afterwards," Trinity said casually, opening the autopsy file again, flipping to the next page to read more in detail.  
  
Everything was the same, no alcohol, no drugs, no other toxins of any kind in the victim's bloodstream, deep ligature marks on the victim's neck, ruptured vessels in the lungs which corresponded with strangling, or partial strangling, as was the case. The cause of death had been blood loss from a single laceration from neck to groin. Once the victim had died, the internal organs had been pulled out, and shoved into four-liter ice cream tubs, which were found next to the bodies.  
  
Victim number five, Trinity thought to herself. She hoped silently that they would be able to come up with a pattern, other than the modus operandi and choice of dumpsites for the bodies. She also hoped the killer wouldn't begin to experiment, as many do once they reach five or six killings. But she prayed that this case would be closed, not freeze over.  
  
She cursed the fact that New York was the first place the killer had struck with this MO. Nothing had showed up in the NCIC of past crimes bearing similarities. The only history on the case had been in Old England, back in the days when the Tower of London had been an actual torture chamber, when people were hung from their crimes. But they weren't just hung, as her research had told her. They had been hung half to death, and gutted while they still breathed, in front of the peasant audience, who often cheered the torturing death of the criminals.  
  
But it didn't make sense…to have the whole procedure so well fine tuned, the killer would have had to practice, kill many times before to hone his skills and plans, to see what worked and what didn't. A person didn't just go out a kill and find their method so perfect. And they must be truly bloodthirsty and intelligent to be able to create such havoc and leave no trace as to the location of the killings or the identity of the killer behind.  
  
"Lethal injection is a sure course of fate for whoever did this," Trinity mumbled under her breath as to not disturb her partner, who was extremely busy with his work. She glanced up as movement near Donnogan's office caught her attention. Captain Donnogan walked out of his office, speaking still with the other person. Trinity now was able to see the other man's face. She could tell beforehand that he was tall and dark haired, but now she could tell he had worked in the field before. Yet she hadn't seen him around the precinct before. She concluded he was most likely a transfer from another precinct. Dressed in a dark blue suit and tie, this man looked every inch a seasoned detective.  
  
Trinity felt the fleeting hope that this man was the extra detective she had requested a few days back, if he even was a detective. The hope was abolished as she remembered Donnogan telling her that the budget was tight, and her case wasn't quite high profile enough to convince the guys upstairs that they needed more detectives, even if it was only temporary.  
  
She returned her attention to the autopsy report that pleaded to be read, but not before noticing her superior stopping to talk to Detective Myklar, who was working a heavy kidnapping/murder case. She wasn't aware that the other man was dismissed, and crossed the floor towards them.  
  
"Sergeant Colz?" he asked, standing next to the adjoined desks. From the slightly confused lilt to his voice, she could tell that Donnogan hadn't told him who was Sergeant Colz and who was Detective Jepp. But she wasn't surprised. Donnogan often forgot that one little detail.  
  
Trinity stood slowly. "Yes, that's me. Can I help you?"  
  
He was slightly surprised Sergeant Colz was a woman. Well, such a petite woman, anyhow. She stood no higher that 5'5" or 5'6" and looked every inch a delicate flower that didn't quite belong in the NYPD. He had heard about her arrest record, and the tough scrapes she often got herself into, and out of. He covered his surprise quickly, but not quickly enough for her to miss. He extended his hand, saying, "I'm Detective Ray Curtis. My partner and I have been assigned to your case."  
  
Trinity smiled, and shook his hand. She introduced Jepp, who regarded the Detective with a barely audible grunt. "Have you been following the case by any chance?"  
  
"Yes, but there wasn't much in the newspapers about the case."  
  
Trinity smiled, and motioned for him to pull up a chair. There was something slightly odd about her smile, however. "That's good."  
  
"Good?"  
  
"Yes. It's hard to explain, but I find the media quite nosey. A trait I picked up from an FBI friend of mine." She sat back in her chair, lacing her fingers together over her stomach. "I've worked cases where the media got too close and scared away our suspect, causing the case to fall into a cold file." Curtis nodded slowly, catching her drift. "And from what we've built so far on this suspect's profile, he'll most likely be following the papers closely to see his work in print."  
  
"Won't that just aggravate them more if they don't get what they want?"  
  
"Well, if he got what he wanted, then he would quit and go into hiding until everything blows over and he can surface again. This way, he'll keep striking until he gets the coverage he wants from the papers."  
  
"You sure about that?"  
  
"My friend in the FBI has a degree in criminal psychology from Oxford. I've talked this over with her unofficially, and she stated that was a pretty fair motive, considering there seems to be no other real pattern to present a different motive."  
  
"What kind of patterns are there? Is there a time line?"  
  
"No time line, and the only patterns are the MO and choice of site for dumping the bodies."  
  
"That's all?" Trinity nodded slowly. "What are the details of the patterns?"  
  
"The dumping site are always school yards within the Bronx. We're guessing he hopes for some kid to find a body. The MO is an old European execution method. The victim is hanged till half dead and then they are cut open from neck to groin. As opposed to European methods, the victim isn't gutted until after they have bled to death. The internal organs are then neatly packed away into ice cream buckets, and left with the body."  
  
"The papers never said anything about the gender of the perpetrator. Have you figured that out yet?"  
  
"No, why?"  
  
"You keep using masculine pronouns."  
  
"Ah, yes. It's a strange little quirk I have that Jepp is none too pleased about. I am using masculine pronouns to make the perpetrator more human at the moment, before there is a face or a name to place there. We haven't found out if the person is male or female yet, nor am I saying all serial killers are male. I guess it's the same as classifying the human race as 'mankind.' If you would prefer it, I could stop."  
  
"No, no, I don't mind. I was just curious," Curtis said with a wave of his hand.  
  
Trinity's phone rang. "Excuse me a second," she said quickly, picking up the receiver. He noted the white-gold diamond engagement ring she wore on her right hand, as well as her watch on her right wrist. She spoke for a few minutes on the phone, and picked up a pen, jotting down an address, using her right hand. This puzzled him a bit, seeing as most people who are right-handed wore their watches on their left wrists, and vise-versa. He noticed Jepp had looked up for the first time from his paperwork as Trinity grabber her pen. "We've got another one," she said solemnly.  
  
Jepp took out a marker, and marked the date on his desk calendar. He glanced at Trinity's worried expression. "We'll find a time line soon enough," he assured her, his tone betraying the fact he didn't believe his own words.  
  
"Yeah, but when?" was Trinity's response. She thought back to the previous five victims, the first having been away on holiday when he was found. The second was a young child that had been missing one night when she didn't return home from school. The third was a young woman, who had gone clubbing, found the next morning. The fourth turned out to be a teenaged boy who had been missing for four months prior to the incident, and the final one was a man who had been gone for twelve hours, having not returned after getting coffee one morning. Each turned up at different time intervals, and was found even at different times of the day. Each was even fund at different areas on the school grounds; one in a Dumpster, three in the fields, and one slumped up against the front door. This case was honestly making her head spin.  
  
Trinity was snapped out of her reverie when Jepp said, "These papers are due in before noon."  
  
Trinity nodded, understanding the circumstance. "Then you and I will go," she said to Curtis. "And Jepp can wait for your partner, who is obviously not here." She stood, lifting her jacket from the back of her chair. Curtis nodded in agreement, and retrieved his own coat from a hook nearby. It was still only September, but it was cold outside, and the forecast predicted snow for later today. A sharp September wind whipped her curly, dark brown ponytail over one shoulder as she stepped outside.  
  
~*~*~  
  
Ten minutes later, Trinity was parking her car. She had found she could only park a block away from the address, but she could clearly see the roofs of the school buildings. She walked quickly toward the school, Curtis following behind her. Already, she was beginning to wonder. This was a Catholic middle school, and the others had been public elementary schools.  
  
She followed the trail of news vans around the corner, slightly surprised so many stations had arrived before she had. She stopped dead in her tracks, noticing the yellow police tape was strung around an apartment building across the street from the school. She hurried over, speaking with one of the officers on the scene and ignoring the press that fried questions at her.  
  
Curtis remained in his place for a moment, pondering Trinity's actions. He walked over, taking in the area as he passed. When the press turned their attention to him, he simply said he was new on the case, and there wasn't anything he could tell them. He poked around outside the building, and spoke with the young woman who found the body.  
  
"Miss Avler…" he began.  
  
"Call me Andrea," she replied, cutting him off.  
  
He got a creepy feeling as he stood next to her. "Andrea, how do you think the body got into your apartment?"  
  
Andrea shrugged. "He was the superintendent. I heard from other people he went into their apartments sometimes."  
  
"But how did the killer wind up in your apartment? You mentioned on the phone your door was locked form the inside."  
  
He sensed Andrea was getting a little nervous. "Umm…the super could have left the door open, and he could have escaped out one of the windows…"  
  
"The locked windows?" Trinity asked, coming up behind them. "Locked from the inside?"  
  
Andrea paled. "Um…I found a window open, and closed it because my heating bill is already sky-high and my apartment was freezing. Then I found the super's body."  
  
Trinity nodded. "I see. May I take a closer look around your apartment?"  
  
"Excuse me?"  
  
"May I take a look in the bedrooms, bathroom, closets, and such?"  
  
Andrea looked nervous. "Uhh…"  
  
"The killer might have left something behind there. I would really like to take a look around a bit."  
  
"Um, sure. Yeah, sure. Go ahead, I don't mind at all."  
  
Trinity nodded, gave the frightened girl a brief smile, and turned back to her apartment. Curtis followed her. Once they were out of earshot of Andrea, he murmured, "You don't actually believe her, do you?"  
  
"Of course not, but I need evidence to support my theory."  
  
"Theory?"  
  
"We've got a copycat killer."  
  
~*~*~  
  
Author's Notes: Sorry about ending it there, but if I keep going, there will only be one really, really, REALLY long chapter to the story. I hate cliffhangers, but sometimes they're needed, don't you agree? Like now, this chapter, by itself, is 7 pages long, so a cliffhanger is an okay ending…urg and I'm rambling again. Sorry. Next chapter out ASAP. 


End file.
